two of us
by MagicInTheNight
Summary: LBD. The conversations begin the morning after the night before (although, if she had paid attention she would have realized that they've been going on much longer than that; she just never allowed herself to listen). (also on AO3)
1. one

**you and i have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead**

The conversations begin the morning after the night before (although, if she had paid attention she would have realized that they've been going on much longer than that; she just never allowed herself to listen).

While the majority of the other people in the town are no doubt recovering from St. Patrick's Day celebrations, Lizzie Bennet has a hangover of her own to deal with - except hers isn't spawned by the effect of alcohol, rather the effect of William Darcy.

He'd arrived on her doorstep again that morning and she'd been the one to let him in, not Charlotte or Lydia (both of whom, she had discovered, had been looming in the doorway when he'd come to call the night before; Charlotte because she thought that he was the Chinese delivery and Lydia because she'd seen him from her bedroom window). Lizzie had kissed him and they had sighed contentedly, and then Lydia had popped her head from the doorway of the den and told them that while she wasn't going to help them get away with keeping their fledgling relationship a secret from the rest of the family forever she had decided to at least give them until dinner that night, and with that in mind they should probably know that it wouldn't be long until Mrs Bennet was home. She hadn't needed to say anything else; Lizzie was suggesting a walk into town almost instantly, and William hadn't been inclined to refuse.

They've deliberately elongated their stroll, taking the route less travelled instead of the expected path, and have been sauntering along with only each other for company for an hour or so when the inevitable question comes - and not in the way that she expects it to.

"Lizzie!" A voice behind her calls, and she spins around to come face-to-face with a girl that she hasn't spoken to since high school graduation.

The smiles aren't fake (though the hug is a bit more than necessary, but Lizzie decides that when a girl throws her arms out wide and encapsulates you in them, you either hug back or you resign yourself to being dubbed uninterested in all conversations that go on behind your back) and the questions come with a slice of genuine interest.

_What are you up to now? _

Lizzie smiles, explaining that she's mere weeks away from finishing up a masters degree and finishing with a shrug and her go-to phrase of "and then who knows?" (As a matter of fact, she thinks that she does know, but this is small talk, not the opening chapter of her autobiography.)

_How are Jane and Lydia? _

Fine and fine, Lizzie replies, elaborating only slightly to mention Jane's new job and the fact that Lydia is 21 now. (This is an old school friend who clearly doesn't know about the videos; why would she elaborate any further?)

_And who is __**this**__?_

The question had been expected - William isn't invisible, after all, and it's only polite for Hannah Everett to acknowledge his presence, so it isn't as though Lizzie was under the illusion that she wouldn't have to introduce him at some point.

Still, when the moment finally falls, she flounders. It isn't that she doesn't know how to introduce him, but rather that she barely feels qualified to.

The Romantic movement elicited sonnet after sonnet that attempted to describe the way in which love manages to infect every part of a person, every limb, every pore, but Lizzie almost succeeds in solidifying the possibility that nobody has ever felt exactly as she does now. She spent months and months defacing this man's character in the most public way and yet now, as they wander the streets of the town that she grew up in, not hand in hand but walking close enough for their hands to bump together, for their fingers to catch and mesh and intwine for fragments of moments, she realizes that she barely knows him at all.

"This... Um, this..." She turns to catch William's eye, smiling in spite of herself as soon as she locks her gaze onto his. "This is William. Uh... Will, this is Hannah."

He nods an acknowledgement and in that motion Lizzie can see an echo of the William Darcy that she met at the Gibson wedding. Just an echo, though, because there's something different. He's a little more at ease. She can make out the ghost of the dimple that adorns his right cheek when he smiles, and his eyes are a little more open, a little more receptive.

A few other pleasantries are exchanged and then Hannah makes her excuses, makes her promises that they'll catch up properly soon and then makes her leave.

As she moves away, Lizzie blurts out an apology though she's not entirely sure what she's apologizing for. For the interruption? For the haphazard introduction? For not knowing him as well as she should?

"It must be nice running into people that you've known your whole life," he muses, easily shrugging off her apology. "It can happen in San Francisco, of course, but it's far less likely in such a populated city. I can't remember the last time I met someone from school."

"Well, you'd think that," Lizzie challenges, quirking an eyebrow in his direction. "But to me, Hannah will forever be the girl who kissed my fourth grade boyfriend, causing him to break up with me on our four hour anniversary. You never look at her in quite the same way when you hold that information."

Darcy laughs lightly, glancing over his shoulder at the retreating back of the girl. When his eyes flicker back to meet Lizzie's gaze, they're dancing with mirth. "Fourth grade boyfriend?"

Lizzie rolls her eyes, deliberately bumping his arm with her shoulder. "Ten. I was ten."

"That is the age of the average fourth grader, yes," he acknowledges. "However, I don't believe 'ten' was an answer to my question."

"I don't believe you actually _asked_ a question, William."

"Should I be worried about this fourth grade boyfriend discovering what he allowed to slip through his fingers fourteen years ago?"

Now Lizzie captures his hand in hers, twining her fingers through his, threading them together so that if she only glances at their hands for a second she can't tell which digits belong to her and which belong to him. "I don't know. Harry Jamison was quite a catch. He had a neon green eraser that I was just _dying _to borrow."

"Is that all it takes to buy your affections?"

She nods once, emphatically. "A neon green eraser and a newsie cap."

"If I had only known that last fall," he murmurs, pulling her closer to him, eliminating the space between their forearms.

She rests her cheek against his shoulder, bringing her left hand across her body so as to trace her fingers along the muscles of his arm. She just wants to touch him, ensure that he's never out of grasp, and she berates herself for this apparent clinginess because she's not that kind of girl and she never wants to be but she spent so many weeks thinking that she'd lost her chance and here he is, willing to give her another one. It seems too good to be true; she has seconds where she doesn't trust that he's not a figment of her imagination. Those seconds are only disrupted by the sound of his voice, by the words that fill in the blanks in the story of William Darcy, words that she can't possibly have invented because they tell a tale that she doesn't know yet.

"Didn't you have a fourth grade girlfriend?" she asks, and it strikes her that she wants to know all of these personal things. She wants to know everything, wants to become fully versed in the life and times of this man. He's scanned through the equivalent of a year of her diary. She wants to scrutinize every single page of his.

"What's your definition of girlfriend?" he asks, immediately.

"So you did?"

"Until I garner an acute definition, I can't possibly confirm or deny that."

"I'll rephrase the question: when was your first kiss, William Darcy?"

"Eleventh grade."

"_Really?_"

He tucks his chin back, clearing his throat quietly before he nods curtly.

"Wow."

"Are you surprised?"

"A little," she concedes. "Not that it's a thing to be ashamed of. It's not, at all. I just can't believe that people didn't think you were a bigger catch."

She feels him laugh. "Are you being facetious, Lizzie?"

Her initial reaction is to frown, because she doesn't instantly know what he means.

When she doesn't reply he glances down at her and seeing the crease between her eyebrows prompts another buried chuckle. "The Lizzie Bennet of October would have joined ranks with those who didn't think I was a catch, would she not?"

Lizzie colors slightly, her gaze dropping to their feet. The pace at which they amble is perfectly matched, the rhythm never formally established but adopted naturally by them both. "The Lizzie Bennet of October was entirely wrong."

"The Lizzie Bennet of October had plenty of reason to say what she did."

"No, she didn't."

"Yes, she - " Darcy trails off with the hint of a sigh, twisting his body slightly to allow someone walking behind them to overtake. At length, he breaks the silence with a name: "Rebecca Van Wright."

Lizzie frowns again, forcing the lingering thoughts of all of the horrible things that she'd purposefully published on the internet out of the forefront of her mind for the moment. "What?"

"My first real girlfriend," he explains. "I was sixteen and she was in my English class. She liked Sherlock Holmes novels and metallic blue nail polish and Fitz was the one who convinced her that I had social skills."

"He wasn't always the worst wingman ever, then."

Darcy smiles. "No. He had fine priorities and made sure to reserve that behavior for the woman that I really wanted to impress."

"So, what did he say?"

"To Rebecca?" He doesn't wait for Lizzie's confirmation before continuing. "He told her I had tickets to see her favorite band and was too shy to ask. None of which was false. I did have tickets, though we only found out they were her favorite band by chance, and I was painfully shy, hence why Fitz had to do the talking. We went to see The Strokes, and had a few other dates over the course of the year."

"A few?"

"I hope you're going to be as forthcoming when it comes to details about your first dating experience." His sidelong glance brings a smile to her face. "Yes, a few. We broke up just before spring of 2002."

Lizzie has to suppress the want to ask about the other girls that followed Rebecca Van Wright. Her inner self has to catch the urge to do so, has to ball it up as tight as possible and lock it in the darkest part of her mind because she doesn't want to overwhelm him with questions. She has all the time in the world to ask him about first loves, to enquire about his high school prom, to quiz him on how, exactly, his friendship with Fitz began and how it reached a point where Fitz was the one to instigate Will's romantic involvements - or she hopes she does.

For now, as they walk along the main street in the town that she grew up in, no doubt under the watchful gaze of somebody she used to go to school with, or somebody who works with her father, or who has tea with her mom, she can be content with that. She doesn't know everything, not yet, but she knows that she has the chance to know everything. She doesn't have to hold him so tight. He's letting her in.

Slowly she extricates herself from him - she slides her left hand down his left arm, and as soon as her fingertips brush against the buttons of his shirt she pulls away; she lifts her head from where it rests on his shoulder, tilting it from side to side a few times so as to stretch the muscles on the other side of her neck; she moves away from his side, not far away, but just far enough that their forearms aren't crushing together anymore. She even begins to unravel their fingers without thinking; their thumbs unclasp and their index fingers bid one another adieu, and their middle fingers separate, and their ring fingers hang on for dear life but don't quite win their battle.

Their little fingers remain locked, and although she doesn't set out to leave it that way she doesn't untangle them and nor does he. It's their silent pinky promise. Things are alright. Things will continue to be alright.

"I don't know what else you expect me to say about Harry Jamison," Lizzie begins again, her grin broad as she looks up at him.

"But you were in a loving relationship with him for all of four hours. There must be endless anecdotes."

"I only liked him for his eraser!"

"It's no wonder he left you for Hannah."

"Excuse me?"

"I have to be honest, if I find out you're only with me because of my office supplies..."

"Pemberley does have a lot of lust-worthy office supplies..."

**I started writing this yesterday in the midst of the Lizzie Bennet Monday withdrawal symptoms. Wait. Does that sentence make sense? I don't know. I don't know if this entire thing makes sense to be honest, because I didn't write it entirely chronologically and even though I've gravitated toward using present tense for all of the LBD stuff I've posted I don't usually, so I probably slip up despite editing. Maybe I'll get better for the next conversation.**

**Title/quote is from Two of Us by The Beatles.**


	2. two

**you and i have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead**

After the initial furor that succeeds Lizzie's announcement that William is going to stay for dinner, Mrs Bennet practically forces him into the seat at the head of the table and although Lizzie silently appeals to her father to remedy the situation the older man merely smiles, his eyes twinkling at her.

They eat chicken and drink wine and the Bennet parents (and Lydia) invent a new game that involves quizzing their dinner guest about almost everything under the sun, as well as offering sporadic reprieves of the grilling in the form of embarrassing (or entertaining, depending on who you were) anecdotes about Lizzie's childhood. Awkwardness tinges the meal, but there's genuine laughter and Darcy manages to prove his wit and when they're just finishing up the course, their plates down to dregs of food, he catches Lizzie's eye and she can read so much in that one look. Yes, her mother may be a little crazy and is refusing to call him by his first name despite many pleas to do so, and yes, Lydia is back to bordering on inappropriate with her euphemisms, and yes, Kitty attempting to steal food from his plate was a force he was not anticipating on having to reckon with, but he's here and he's happy and it's _good_.

Lizzie looks back down at her food with a smirk at that look, a buzz of contentment settling against her ribcage.

"So, what do your parents do, _Mr Darcy_?" Mrs Bennet asks, as a beat of silence draws out for just a little too long. Her wine glass is held high, almost level with her face. Her fingers curl around the stem, her pinky finger the one exception; it juts out and Lizzie has to resist the urge to roll her eyes at the ridiculousness of both her mother's question and pose that she's striking.

Then, she remembers.

The color drains from her face and she has to force herself to put her knife and fork down gently, because dropping them completely may ruin all semblance of etiquette that this dinner has managed to retain.

"_Mom_," is the warning that Lizzie gives, but her mother always expects such a reaction from her middle daughter and has perfected the art of ignoring it, thus rendering herself oblivious to the fact that the warning isn't to prevent her from being too overbearing but rather to prevent her from wading in over her head.

Lizzie had researched Pemberley before she had gone to shadow the company and it didn't take a lot of clicking on the website to locate a page dedicated to William and Anne Darcy. She'd visited the Memorial Hall, seen the plaque on the wall that proclaimed their names and the date that they died. It was a piece of information that she'd absorbed early on in her visit to San Francisco, another piece of information that had allowed her to see William F. Darcy from a different angle, in a different shade of light, but it hadn't been something that had been mentioned by either of them, nor by Gigi or Fitz. When Lizzie had been a visitor, an intern, a maybe-almost-friend, she hadn't felt as though she had the right to ask prying questions about life-changing events.

She's no longer any of those things, and that brings both excitement and anxiety to her chest in equal amounts. That one day she might earn the chance to hear the stories of the Darcy family tree is what she wants, almost more than anything, but she's aware that there'll be difficult moments woven through the tales. She's aware that she'll probably have to take his hand, shed some tears, experience an evening wherein she just wants to hold him close and never let go because (and he knows this better than anyone) life is short, too short.

She's not prepared to delve into those difficult moments here in front of her family during their first meal all together.

"You don't have to answe -"

Darcy shakes his head. His shoulders slumped infinitesimally at the initial question and Lizzie watches as he rolls them back to perfect posture and prepares to answer. "Unfortunately, my parents are..." - he pauses and Lizzie isn't sure he's going to carry on; she sits forward in her chair and begins to formulate a change of topic to make things easier, but then he lifts his gaze to meet hers and says the words that she knew he was going to say but that she has never heard him say up until now, and it takes her breath away for a fraction of a second because it's _real _and although she knew it was real before, now it's really real and she just wants to hug him because this should have been a conversation that they first had on their own, but her family is here and they're watching intently and - "...they died."

There's silence.

"Good one, Mom," Lydia mutters.

She can't completely wipe away her annoyance with her mother for asking the question in the first place, but Lizzie is almost proud of the Bennet matriarch in that moment. In an instant the theatrics, the pretenses, the ridiculous mannerisms are gone. On her face is a genuine look of sympathy, in her eyes is a growing realization that this man has had a life far more difficult than she first presumed. Her pinky finger is now curled in with the rest of her digits.

"I am sorry, Mr Darcy. I had no ide -"

William cuts her off with a protest. "You didn't know, Mrs Bennet. It isn't something I tend to... advertise."

"Of course it isn't! I just -"

"She wouldn't have brought it up if she had known," Lizzie interjects firmly. "And we won't bring it up again now that we do know, will we?"

Darcy sighs. "Lizzie, I don't min -"

"It's okay, you shouldn't have to talk about it if you don't want -"

"I certainly don't mind talking about my paren -"

"It's really rather personal -"

"Lizzie." This voice comes from her father, who has remained characteristically contemplative throughout the meal, only offering up slight teasing odds and ends when the mood takes him. The seriousness that has crept into his tone now takes her by surprise and she ceases her attempts to alleviate the tension in order to look at him. "Your boyfriend seems to have his own voice."

She blinks at the word boyfriend, her gaze instantly sliding to William to gauge his reaction.

As ever, he doesn't reveal much in his facial expression, but she can sense how painfully aware he is that the attention is piled upon his shoulders again. He clears his throat and averts his stare down at his plate. "I don't mind talking about my parents, Mrs Bennet. It was a long time ago."

It's hardly surprising that while he's given his blessing for the conversation to continue none of the people gathered around the table want to be the first to throw themselves back into it. Even Lizzie's mother, although clearly desperate to hear the full story, is holding back. It will have to be information offered rather than information procured.

"They, uh..." He falters over his words and although this is something that he tends to do rather a lot when in Lizzie's company, Lizzie notes that he has never done it quite like this.

Normally, he weighs up the value of each piece of vocabulary before speaking. He articulates himself well, holds himself proudly, and because Lizzie brings out a nervousness in him his carefulness with words is usually because he wants to impress. That isn't the case here and now and it's strange how even though she's certainly no expert in the ways of William Darcy, Lizzie can tell that this is new territory when it comes to their conversations. He's not hoping to impress. He's not nervous. He's stumbling over what to say because for once he doesn't have the words.

She wonders for a second if he's ever done this before, if this is a conversation he's ever had with anyone before - girlfriend's family or otherwise. All evidence would suggest not.

She just wants to tell him to stop, that it's alright, that he doesn't need to share this with them here. But she doesn't.

When he continues, he addresses the food on his plate - or that's where he's looking (though Lizzie would hazard a guess that what he's seeing is something far removed from the Bennet family dining room). "They got into a car accident. They were on a business trip, they were driving in the dark and..."

It's the first time Lizzie has heard any of this, even the most basic of facts of the event. She didn't know why or how or when or where and even though he's only answered a few of those questions Lizzie can't help but invent moments to fill what hasn't been said.

The obvious questions seep through first. How did William find out? Was he alone? Was he with Gigi? Did someone call him, or did someone visit to bear the bad news in person? She imagines the two siblings finding out, clutching onto one another like they were buoys in the ocean attempting to stay afloat. Gigi cries. Does William cry?

Once the gates have been opened for those thoughts, more morbid ones begin to surface. Did they die instantly? Did they get to say goodbye? Maybe William had to make a decision to turn off the life support. A hazy image of a funeral wavers in Lizzie's mind. Will has on a suit that's slightly too big, his tie is crooked, he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"I _am _sorry, Mr Darcy." Her mother's voice snaps her back to the moment, away from her overactive imagination. "How... how old were you?"

William finally lifts his gaze to meet that of Mrs Bennet, his facial expression clouded and difficult to read. "I was a month away from turning twenty. My sister was thirteen. It was a long time ag - I'm sorry. Would you just excuse -"

He doesn't finish the question - does he have to? - but pushes his chair back and nods once, practically fleeing the room.

Lizzie remains rooted to her seat for a few of the moments that succeed his exit, her lips parted slightly, her eyes wider than usual. Her mind is racing with the questions she has about _everything_ and she feels as though she needs to put the world on pause for a few minutes while she collects her thoughts, categorizes them, files them away in an order that makes sense and will allow her to call back on them when the time is right for asking those sorts of things.

In the end it's Lydia that puts things into perspective. A hard kick to the shin from under the table drags her gaze from the now empty doorway to her red-headed sister, who is frowning. "What are you still sitting there for, loser? He's not going to want any of the rest of us to go in and ask if he's alright."

"What do I say?" Lizzie asks rather pathetically, before she even thinks about it.

Lydia rolls her eyes, her mother makes an exaggerated _hmm_-ing sound, her father just watches her. No one moves to provide solid advice and she makes a mental note to thank them for that later, but that doesn't stop her from standing up and retracing Darcy's steps out of the room.

He's standing in the den, his hands in the pockets of his pants, looking out of the window at the pinkening sky. She knows that he hears her approach though she doesn't quite know how; when she reaches him, when she skates her fingertips over his back, when she presses her cheek into his shoulder and sighs, none of it elicits a reaction of surprise. It's like he's been waiting. She hopes that she didn't take too long.

"I'm sorry," she mutters.

"For what?"

"My mother," she says immediately, and then, quieter: "And your parents."

He drops his gaze from the view outside the window and looks down. "It was a long time ago."

"That doesn't change anything. I don't believe it does anyway. They're your parents and you're allowed to hurt for as long as it hurts."

"I don't have time for it to hurt."

"That's ridiculous."

"I had to take over the company. I had to look after Gigi. I had to finish college. I..."

"Are you telling me that you haven't had time in the past eight years to mourn your parents?"

"Of course not. I - I grieved. But it has been eight years. The grieving process is over."

Lizzie shakes her head. "There's no law that says that. The grieving process takes as long as you need it to take, William. Nobody would judge you."

He doesn't respond, but keeps his gaze fixed on the reddening clouds in the sky.

She wants to offer to listen - no. She wants to tell him to talk. Maybe not today, maybe not now, but she wants to let him know that one day she'll sit and he'll talk and he'll can shed some of that heavy fog that surrounds the memories of his mom and dad because she'll listen and she'll smile at the appropriate moments and cry at all the painful ones and he won't have to carry that weight anymore. Because that's part of being in a relationship, isn't it? Sharing some of that load.

She doesn't though. It feels too demanding, too presumptuous for a relationship that has been official for just over twenty-four hours.

William hasn't told his sister everything. Lizzie hasn't called Jane yet. Her viewers have only seen his torso on their screens; they know nothing of what happened next. She feels as though she has to be cautious, walking on tiptoes in fear of heavy footfalls rocking the structure of this brand new... _thing _that they're working on.

"You've done brilliantly, you know."

He looks at her now, his brow creased in slight confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You stepped up. You did everything."

"I had to."

"Would you have..." She trails off, wrinkling her nose. "Sorry. That would have been a stupid question."

"What was it?"

"I was... No."

He quirks an eyebrow.

"I was going to ask if you would have wanted a choice. But of course you would have. You'd have wanted the choice that would bring back your parents."

"I suppose, in a way, I was given a choice. Not in regard to their deaths, of course, but in how I wanted to proceed."

"What do you mean?"

"I could have signed the company over. I could have sold it. I could have told Gigi to go and live with Aunt Catherine. I could have stayed at Harvard instead of transferring to Stanford, finished my studies on the East Coast, moved at my own pace. I did have that choice. But it didn't feel appropriate."

"It didn't feel appropriate?"

"My father's company being run by someone else? My sister not being under my care? It didn't feel like it would be the right choice for anybody. So I transferred and I adapted. But I had a choice. And although things were by no means perfect, there isn't an awful lot that I would do differently."

"There are a few things that you would do differently?"

He pauses for a second, mulling the question over before he settles on his answer. "Perhaps slight things. I might have treated Gigi slightly differently, been less overprotective. In a perfect world I would have realized all of my character flaws before I came to Netherfield last summer so that the scene at Collins and Collins could have been prevented -"

Lizzie shakes her head at this, interjecting before he can finish. "That scene... was not one of my proudest moments and I'm sure when I look back on it for my thesis... But we're here now. Who was it that said 'I may not have gone where I intended to go but I think I've ended up where I needed to be'?"

William smiles, nodding as he angles his body towards hers. "Someone very wise, no doubt."

The dinner in the other room remains forgotten. They stand and stare out of the window, but neither of them are drinking in the scene that lies before them. Their thoughts are scattered elsewhere - hers to the future, of all the things they have left to say, and his in the past, of all the things he never got to.

"I'm sorry." She says again, at length.

"I know." He takes his left hand out of his pocket and loops it around her, behind her waist, finding her left hand and weaving their fingers together. "Me too."

**This one was really difficult to write. On more than one occasion I thought about skipping it, leaving it until later, but the setting wouldn't have made much sense if I'd left it until later. As a result, it's not exactly how I wanted it, but if I re-read and alter and add anymore I think I'll go crazy...**


End file.
